King moved forward. He was only about ten feet away.
“Who sent you?” King couldn’t wait any longer. He had to know.
Smith didn’t speak.
King pulled the trigger and shot Smith in the right leg. “Who sent you?”
Smith collapsed to the ground, then slowly rose to his feet. “Does it really matter, King? The damage is done. You’re done.”
King moved the aim of the short-barreled AR from Smith’s leg to his head. “You’re the one who’s done. Now it’s just a matter of whether you survive me right now or you rot in prison. Doesn’t matter to me either way.”
Horns began sounding around them, as they were holding up traffic.
“Tell me who you’re working with and I’ll let you live,” King said. He was now only a few feet away from Smith. Close enough that King could see the stubble of his beard, the missing index finger, and the fear of death in his eyes. He was about to talk.
“I tell you who I’m working with, you get me a deal,” Smith said. “If you have any pull left, that is.”
King thought of President Gibbons.
“You’ll have to give someone up who’s worth making a deal for. And don’t worry about pull. I’ve still got plenty.”
“Trust me,” Smith grinned. “The people will care far more about who I give up than they’ll care about me.”
“All right. I can pull some strings. Get in the back of the car.”
Smith put his hands above his head and took a step toward the police car. It was the last step he would ever take. Out of the cross street a black SUV came speeding through the light. It hit Smith so hard, it knocked him right out of his shoes. King could feel the hot wind of the SUV as it blew by him. King shouted “No!” as a knee-jerk reaction. He knew his chance of finding out who framed him might have just died right in front of him.
However, when two more SUVs pulled up, King quickly jumped back to reality realizing Smith getting hit was no accident. A few Mexican men piled out of the SUV that hit Smith, and also from the last SUV that had pulled up. About a half dozen of them in total. All of them were carrying semiautomatic rifles, and every one of them was pointed straight at King. Everyone’s eyes seemed to be on the SUV in the middle. The driver stepped out and opened the back door. A man not much older than King emerged. His jet-black hair was slicked straight back. He was wearing a maroon suit with a white open-collar shirt. And his white smile glowed beneath his brown skin. King recognized Raúl Ortega immediately.
“Alexander King,” Ortega said as he took a few steps toward King.
There was nowhere for King to go, and there were too many of them to fight.
“You mind putting the gun down?”
King lifted the strap over his shoulder and laid the AR on the ground. Even if he wanted to shoot, he’d be dead before he got them all. Beyond that, for some reason King got the immediate vibe that Ortega’s interest in King might just be not to kill him. Behind King tires squealed against pavement. King looked back, and the white SUV he and his team had piled into after the van toppled over came swerving around the corner. Somehow his team had come for him.
Two of Ortega’s men rushed in front of him to provide cover. The rest of his men readied their weapons. The white SUV slid to a stop, and Sam, Kyle, Jack, and Lawson all stepped out with guns drawn. King was caught in the middle, the only one standing without a weapon in his hands.
It wasn’t his favorite place to be.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
With streetlights glowing over the road, King felt like he had a spotlight on him the way he was alone in between Ortega’s men and his own team. As if he were on stage. The problem was, this was no play, and no one was going to shout, “Scene!” so King could move from the danger he was in.
“You’d better have them put the guns down, King!” Ortega shouted, pushing through the two men trying to guard him.
“No way we’re putting ours down until you do!” Kyle shouted.
On the left, one of Ortega’s men stepped forward, poked his rifle forward, and shouted something in Spanish. King watched Lawson move his pistol to that man and shout. “Stand down!”
This could spiral fast if King didn’t gain some control over the situation. He threw up both of his hands—one palm facing his team and the other facing Ortega and his men. “Stop! Everybody calm down.”
“Calm down?” Kyle said. “These thugs have guns on you, X!”
King turned to face him. “I said calm down! Put the gun down, Kyle.” Then he looked at everyone. “All of you. Put ’em down!”
Sam lowered her weapon. “You sure about this?”
King nodded. Begrudgingly, his team did as he asked. Then he turned back to Ortega. “Come on. Let’s work something out here. You want something from me, or you would have killed me before you ever got out of your truck.”
“Is that right?” Ortega said.
“Am I wrong?”
Ortega stared at King for a moment. Then he looked over at his men and waved his hand downward. They did as he asked and lowered their weapons. Ortega took a few steps toward King. His men fell in behind him. King felt his team move in closer.
“Mr. King, I have a . . . a proposition for you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Let’s talk over here,” Ortega said as he motioned toward the parking lot. “Let the people have their street back. My men will move your vehicles. Let’s walk over here together.”
King nodded and signaled for his team to follow. Ortega’s men put Scott Smith’s lifeless body in the back of one of the SUVs. In a matter of a minute, the entire twisted caravan was moved from the road to the parking lot of some sort of paycheck cashing business.
“Okay, now let’s hear it,” King said.
Ortega gave a crocodile grin. “As I’m sure you know by now, I have a very lucrative business here in Mexico City.”
“Our definitions of business might be a little different. But I get your point.”
“Maybe, but I make a lot of money and live a very nice life. I made a poor decision doing a deal with someone from your country, and I don’t want things to change here because of it.”
“Aside from the drugs you stashed at my home, what does that have to do with me?”
“Ah, see, this is my point,” Ortega said as he smoothed back his hair. His men gathered around him once again. “I had nothing to do with those drugs at your home. But when I saw the report as you did, I realized I wasn’t really a business partner to my new associate. I was simply part of the setup. Maybe even a victim of it myself.”
“Would you like to tell me who this associate is?”
“I’m getting to that.”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of time,” King said. “See, you aren’t the only one who wants me. The police will be here any second.”
“They don’t want you either,” Sam said from behind King.
King turned to face her. “I’m assuming that’s how you were able to get here? They let you leave?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “As soon as you left in the police car, the chief of police pulled up and explained how the President of the United States personally called the ambassador to make sure you were no longer considered a wanted man.”
King turned back to Ortega. “Helps to have friends in high places.”
Ortega folded his arms across his chest. “Which is precisely why we are talking now.”
“A couple of hours ago you had one of my own in José turn on me. Now you want to talk? What changed?”
“You are still jumping to too many conclusions,” Ortega said, placing his hands on his hips. “I’m assuming while you were with José, he was pushing to have you take me out?”
“Yes, but that hardly means you didn’t tell him to slant it that way.”
“True, but let me ask you this. At what point did he turn on you?”
King looked to his left at Lawson while he searched his mind for what Ortega might be getting at.
Laws
on reminded him. “When you decided killing Ortega was the long game. And you wanted to wait for backup.”
King looked back at Ortega. “I wanted the laptop with the evidence of the doctored videos of me. José pushed to go after you.”
“Then he left you for dead in your car,” Ortega said.
“So what?” King said. “You arranged to have videos doctored of me kidnapping Brittany McKinley, and that set all of this in motion. Whether José was acting independent of you or not doesn’t really matter. You started him down the path.”
“It does matter, Mr. King. I only found out you were here in Mexico City when I watched the kidnapping video on television this morning like the rest of the world.”
Hearing that surprised King.
“José put this entire thing together,” Ortega continued. Then he pointed over at the SUV where his men had moved Smith’s dead body. “That is why Scott Smith is lying dead in my truck and not you. He and José planned all of this. And yes, they did use my nephew to fake the videos.” Ortega nodded to one of his men.
The man walked over and presented a closed briefcase. Ortega reached over, pushed the two chrome buttons, and the top popped open. Inside were eight fingers and two thumbs. Ortega looked back at King with a proud smile.
“My nephew has made his last video. His fingers are my gift to you.”
“Charming,” King said.
Then King was quiet as he processed. All along he’d just assumed Ortega was involved. All signs pointed in that direction. But flipping back through the entire day’s events, he supposed there wasn’t any absolute proof that Ortega himself had anything to do with the setup. People who worked for him certainly did. And as light traffic began to pass once again on the street beside them, that was where King’s questions started.
“Then why meet with Scott Smith at the St. Regis hotel if you had nothing to do with this?”
“I had nothing to do with Scott Smith either. But he is one of the reasons that new associate of mine and I will no longer be discussing business. Smith blackmailed his way into a meeting with me at my hotel. He was trying to double dip. He was hired by my associate from the States, but he also wanted money from me. Smith threatened to pin everything that happened with you and this Brittany McKinley on me if I didn’t pay him five million dollars. He said it could all easily be tied to you and me being partners. After he left, I thought about it, and he was right. He and José could easily make it look like I was involved. That’s why Smith is dead.”
“Okay,” King said. “Even if I was to buy all of that. If all of that is true—you not planting the drugs, you not being involved in the fake videos, and you not putting José out to kill me—if all of those coincidences just so happen not to involve you, what about Brittany McKinley? You can explain those other things away because you weren’t there, but I saw you, with my own eyes, taking Brittany into your building last night.”
“You’re right. I did. And this is where you need to understand who my new business associate was so what I’m about to tell you will make sense. It might blow your mind, but at least you will understand.”
King looked at each of his team. He wanted to ask how Zhanna was doing, but it wasn’t the time. King was trying to remain neutral so that he could determine whether or not he could believe Ortega. And as King looked back at Ortega, he couldn’t help but smile. A lot of people in King’s career of service to his country have told him they were going to shock him with a certain piece of information, but very few ever succeeded. King figured by that point, he’d just about seen it all.
“Okay then, Mr. Ortega,” King said. “Wow me.”
“Brittany McKinley was in my company last night because I took her from where Scott Smith was hiding her at the Marriott Hotel. As I’m sure you know by now, Smith was the one to kidnap her and bring her here from California.”
“I do know that. What I don’t understand is what any of this has to do with me. But before that, how would you even know that Brittany was here if you weren’t involved with Smith, and why would you go out of your way to help Brittany, whom you don’t know, for no reason? Not exactly the trait of a drug lord to help a stranger.”
“Let me guess,” Lawson interrupted. “Your new business associate.”
Ortega pointed to Lawson and laughed. “Ah, smart man. A good leader should be judged by the strength of those around him.”
King wasn’t amused. “How would your business partner have knowledge of Brittany McKinley being kidnapped, and why would they care if you saved her?”
“Because,” Sam said as she stepped forward, “Ortega’s business partner was Brittany McKinley’s father.”
Chapter Forty
King looked at Sam with a blank stare. He didn’t have the piece of information Sam did in order to put what Ortega was saying together.
“You think Senator McKinley is behind all of this?” King said to Sam. Then he looked back at Ortega, and by the smirk on his face King knew Sam was right.
“She stole my punch line,” Ortega said. “But at least she still blew your mind.”
Ortega was right. This one had shocked King.
“It first crossed my mind when Dbie had mentioned he was the chairman of the FBI Oversight Committee,” Sam said.
When the president had told King the same information, because it was McKinley’s daughter who was taken, he hadn’t given it a second thought. It was then that he realized, Senator McKinley had had his own daughter kidnapped to keep himself from looking guilty if things went sideways.
“Needless to say,” Ortega said, “his plan of using his daughter to keep himself looking innocent really backfired.”
King couldn’t believe a father would put his child in harm’s way like that.
“Sick bastard got what he deserved,” Lawson said.
King turned toward Lawson. “You know him, Lawson. He capable of this?”
“I don’t know him. I knew Brittany. Hiring me to find her must have been just another way of making it look like he’d do anything to get her back. Every one of us standing here was a pawn in his game.”
King knew Lawson was right. But the last thing he didn’t understand was why Senator McKinley had involved King. Regardless, King had to take working his way through all of the information one step at a time. And he had to start with the problem in front of him.
“Okay, Ortega. Now that we’ve played out your little show and you have my attention, you still haven’t told me what you want from me. I’m hoping as you do, it will shed some light on why and how you got into bed with Senator McKinley in the first place.”
“The how and the why of my business does not concern you. I get to keep those things to myself.”
“Then how can you expect me to do something for you?”
“I’m hoping for some good faith, Mr. King. I could have killed you. I didn’t. I could have let you continue to chase your tail about who is actually out to get you, but I didn’t. You now know that a very powerful and influential man in your government is dirty. And I assure you, once you look into it, he is much dirtier than a small scheme to incriminate you.”
“Don’t act like you’re doing me favors,” King said. “You’re doing this because McKinley can make it look like you were responsible for all of this too, and you want me to stop him. The minute Scott Smith shot Brittany, it made you look bad. It was Smith’s way of leveraging you.”
“Which didn’t work in his favor, but yes. Which also helps you, King. Because I gave you McKinley, you can now go and prove you are innocent by showing he did all of this. Which also proves I had nothing to do with it, and that keeps the heat off me. I really don’t understand the hesitation,” Ortega said. Then he looked back at his men. “Am I missing something? Is this not a fair deal?” Then he gave a sweeping look at King’s team. “You all see the win-win in this, right?”
“I see it, Ortega,” King said. “I just don’t make deals with scumbags who trade kids for money.”
Ortega’s men raised their guns. King’s team responded by raising theirs. Ortega waved the men off, telling them to put down their guns. Then he smiled wide as he looked into King’s eyes.
“No, Mr. King. You just decide who lives and who dies on your whim. And you’re allowed to do so in the name of your country and its safety. You can hide behind that veil if you want, but you and I both know we aren’t so different. I just get paid a lot more than you do to do bad things.”
Years ago, a man like Ortega comparing himself to King would have sent King through the roof. But on more than one occasion, King had had the same thought. He understood where Ortega was coming from—and there was some truth to it—but they weren’t the same. King would never take an innocent child from their family and sell them into a life of slavery. And he would never hook people on drugs for profit.
“Okay, Ortega, we’re the same.” King was sarcastic. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. All I care about now are two things. First, getting to the man responsible for Brittany McKinley’s death and the shit situation I’ve been put in down here. The second is getting my team out of Mexico City safely. Now that you’ve divulged who’s responsible, after we leave here in one piece, you can go back to your sinister business without interference from American agencies on one condition.”
“I don’t like conditions, Mr. King.”
King took a step toward Ortega; they were almost nose to nose. “I don’t give a damn. It happens on my condition, or an army comes down here for you next. Whether you kill me here or not.”
“Okay,” Ortega said. “I’ll indulge you. What is it?”
“No more human trafficking.”
Ortega looked up into the night sky. He gave no indication what his answer would be.
King continued. “I can stomach you pedaling drugs to adults who can make their own decisions about what they put in their own bodies. What I will not leave here knowing is that you are kidnapping innocent children to trade them to devils all around the world. I’ll die where I stand before that happens.”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 61
